Baking With God
by TheYmp
Summary: Chuck gives Dean a lesson in baking and philosophy with mixed results. Spoilers for S05E022 'Swan Song'.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or its characters - these were created by Eric Kripke - I'm just borrowing them. I'm not making any commercial gain. No harm or infringement intended.**

**Chuck gives Dean a lesson in baking and philosophy with mixed results. Spoilers for S05E022 'Swan Song'.**

**~#~**

**Baking With God**

"Why do terrible things happen to good people?" wondered Dean aloud.

Chuck thought for a moment, "Do you bake, Dean?" he asked finally.

Dean made a 'double-take' face and opened his mouth to answer, but Chuck beat him to it, "No of course you don't. I know you don't, but I do know you know good pie, which I guess is kinda the same thing. Well, I assume so, anyway."

Dean rolled his eyes at Chuck's already convoluted explanation, "Sorry, but you do write for a living, yeah?"

Chuck waved his hand in the air as if brushing away Dean's comment, "What I mean is that you need to get the oven to the right temperature first, then if you keep checking too much you'll let all the heat out and it'll never cook properly. Once you've put all the right ingredients together, and you've made sure the conditions are right, you've just got to have _faith_ in the cake that it's going to rise properly. Do you get me?"

"I thought we were talking about pie, not cake?" Dean asked in confusion.

"Well, yes, but pie doesn't rise, does it? Or it's not supposed to, anyway," Chuck countered.

Dean scowled at him, "You really suck at analogies, you know that, right?"

"Yes, well, I've always been more of a big ideas man. You know what they say's in the detail..." muttered Chuck.

~#~

"Do you know why we sieve the flour, Dean?" Chuck asked.

"Er, to get the bits out?" answered Dean, not really understanding where this conversation was going, nor how he'd somehow been roped into baking against his will. He was just grateful not to have wear the 'Kiss the Cook' apron that Chuck was currently sporting.

"Exactly!" said the author in the manner of a proud parent praising an otherwise dull child.

"If you didn't, it'd still be okay, but to be a really _perfect_ pie you need to filter the lumps out, and that's what life is, Dean. Filtering out the bad bits no one really wants to eat."

"What, you mean we get eaten?" Dean almost-shrieked in horror.

"Huh? Oh! No, sorry, bad analogy there," said Chuck with a little laugh of embarrassment.

"Again," muttered Dean.

"It's all about the preparation, getting the right ingredients and preparing them just so," Chuck sighed as he passed Dean the sieve and flour. He supposed if it had taken the Israelites forty years in the wilderness to get the message it was a probably a bit much to expect Dean Winchester to understand it in an afternoon.

"Look," he continued, "Anyone can follow a recipe - hmmm, okay, maybe they can't - but a good cook doesn't need to follow a list, they have the instincts to know how the ingredients will work together and what will work, and what won't."

Dean nodded in understanding, as he discretely wiped away the flour he'd just tipped down himself.

"The angels are only just starting to get the hang of cooking on their own, but your Cas has the makings of a truly magnificent chef," said Chuck, the delight and pride sounding clear in his voice.

~#~

"I like to use my hands for this bit," said Chuck, rubbing the butter and flour together, "And you always end up with such clean nails once you've finished too."

Dean screwed his nose up in distaste.

Chuck laughed at his expression, "Oh right, yeah. I forgot that you were Mister Hygiene," he mocked, "C'mon, you're a great mechanic, you if anyone should know that sometimes in life you just have to get your hands dirty."

Again Dean nodded, more in hope that the conversation was turning to cars, than in understanding what Chuck was talking about. He'd never realized that baking could be so complicated.

~#~

"Too long in the oven and it'll go up in flames, too short and it'll come out all soggy and underdone," Chuck explained as he pulled the beautifully browned and gorgeous smelling, apple pies from the oven and set them to rest on a wire mesh on the counter.

And Chuck saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, _it was_ very good.

"The trick is to time it just right. Right, now it's cooked, so we need to leave it to cool. It's tempting to dive straight in, but all you'll do is burn your mouth."

"What?" mumbled Dean, while trying to talk around a half-open mouthful of scalding-hot pie.

Chuck gave a heavy sigh and decided that tomorrow he was definitely sleeping in.

~#~

_**And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day**_** - ****Genesis 1:31**


End file.
